Tuesday, January 10, 2012

How much gel does it take to keep his hair like that?

As part of the holidays, Beasty got a new, larger monitor.  As such, his old but still impressive monitor was moved out to the family computer in the living room.  Now since it was larger, and since the old monitor was an odd size with a weird aspect ratio, I took it upon myself to find new wallpaper for it.  So I was looking on deviantArt, like you do, and I was hoping for something with swirly, stylized clouds.  I like them right now.  Something like this, only in different colors and a little more swirly.

Love the idea, but the color scheme just isn't me.

What I found instead, was this guy.

Over and over and over again.  In every possible light, angle, and pose.  In compromising positions with Sephiroth, Tidus, Squall, Seifer, and a few guys I didn't recognize.  It actually took a couple pages to get to the compromising positions with Aeris, Tifa, and Yuna (as depicted in FFX-2).  With and without the famous Buster Sword, with and without the bike, with and without a shirt in some cases.  I was eventually forced to shriek and rage quit.  Yes, you can rage quit looking for wallpaper.

Now, here is the deal my minions.  I have never understood the preoccupation with Cloud Strife, or with FFVII in general.  I'm not saying it's a bad game, I just don't understand the undying adoration it seems to have garnered.  And Advent Children didn't help - that movie was pretty awesome, but it was nearly ruined by whatever idiot they put in charge of sound editing.  Fight music cuts in randomly, whomever matched up the soundtrack to the action doesn't seem to have actually been watching the film, and while it's a beautifully rendered film with a good story I just can't bring myself to watch it again.  Once was enough with the cringe-worthy audio.  These are not traits that I would think inspire this level of fandom, but clearly I must be wrong.

I feel Scott Ramsoomair put it best.  I deeply and truly wish that man would update more often.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Have you met the Lady of the Manners?

Good morning, my minions!  Today we have just a quick little thing, because I'm behind on homework and it's only the first week of school.  So, as you can imagine, a tad bit of focusing needs to be done.  However, I didn't want to leave you lost and alone, so I will tell you about one of my favorite websites to while away time on.

Is there a goth in your life that you would like to understand better?  Are you a goth that would like a little advice in how to navigate society and build your own little dark corner of this waking dream we call reality? Then, my darlings, let me direct you to the Gothic Charm School.  The Lady of the Manners will offer you her charming and helpful advice in all things spooky, in a gracious and sympathetic tone that (let's face it) I am far too catty to ever manage.

So go, read, be enlightened and entertained, and I'll see if I can't do better on Monday after turning in all of my assignments by their due date of 9pm Sunday evening.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Non-alcoholic drinks and Mayan calendars

Happy New Year, my minions!  I've been gone from you for some time, I know, and for that I apologize.  Here's to getting back on the horse, as it were.

So, another year is upon us.  A good friend called me this morning to wish me a Happy Apocalypse Year.  I've lived through a couple of them at this point, and they've almost become an old hat.  A lot happened in 2011, the most significant likely being my marriage to the fluffy Beasty, with whom I've been involved for seven years now. My all-but-legally-adopted sister also got married back in July.  I made the Dean's Honor Roll for achieving a GPA of 3.5 or better in a quarter.  My son started his final year of elementary school.  The Little Red Bistro and the Theater closed, and the space was taken over by a chiropractor of all things.  And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.  It was a year of change.

While I have said my goodbyes and am ready to see the year go, I feel it important to point out that I'm not shoving it out the door.  It is done, and that's fine, but I don't find myself lamenting about how the year was just awful and I'm so glad it's over.  The year was...a year.  It had both good and bad, and I would say the good took the reins.

So as I sit here writing this, sipping my hot cocoa (which is woefully free of liquid courage) and looking down the barrel of another Apocalypse Year with a saucy grin, I thought I would share with you my resolutions.  I used to be very anti-New Year's resolutions.  "No one ever keeps them," I would loftily decree.  "It's just so ridiculous, and it will only leave me feeling depressed when I inevitably stop going to the gym in six weeks."  These days, I've realized that it won't actually bother me one little bit when I abandon a resolution, and it might encourage me to do something I wouldn't have otherwise.  So, without further ado:

The Empress's Resolutions:
1. Treat my real friends better.
There are people in my life who have been consistently there for me, who have taken the time to show how much they care, and who have just really come through for me in big and small ways.  I have not always shown these people the recognition I feel they deserve.  I'm very far away from most of them, and they know that I'm busy with my imps and with school, and so have been forgiving.  However, I feel they deserve better from me.

2.  Stop worrying about my less consistent acquaintances.
I know a lot of people, and I care about a lot of people, but the truth is there are a number of people in my life whom I have put a fair bit of effort into without ever having that effort returned unless it was easy and convenient for the person in question.  While I can still find it within myself to care about these people, I really need to stop worrying about maintaining a relationship with any of them.  We can be nice, and say hi, and have fun together, but they've shown me that I'm not important to them so they need to stop being important to me.

3. Start being less estranged from my family.
I am very far away from everyone I am related to, some a fair bit more than others.  Rather than sit on the couch and cry because I miss my family or because I have such a poor relationship with my siblings that one brother didn't even RSVP to my wedding let alone show up, I need to do something about it.  When I was younger I would mope because they weren't trying hard enough to have a relationship with me.  That's bullshit.  Time to be the change I want to see.

4.  Start wearing purple.
This is both a literal resolution and a metaphor.  The metaphor bit is a little hard to explain.  Some of you will get it.  Others will not.

5. Find an exercise I enjoy and do it consistently.
I was really good about this once upon a time.  I was taking dance classes, had dropped around 20lbs or so, and was enjoying what I was doing.  Then I dislocated my knee.  The knee is doing better, though is not completely healed, and I regained the 20lbs plus added on some additional weight (which isn't helping the knee).  I need to find a belly dancing class and a yoga class that I enjoy, suck it up, and go.  Preferably something that I have to pay upfront for so that it will encourage me to keep going.

6.  Learn follow-through.
This is the greatest challenge I face, as evidenced by the countless files of unfinished stories, the boxes of half-done projects, the notebooks of ideas that never went anywhere.  I need to finish what I start.  Even with I start to lose interest or it gets frustrating.  And if I falter, if  I drop a project, I need to return to it.  I've gotten much better about this, but I still have a long way to go.

And I believe that's enough for right now.  There is a quote that I've been seeing everywhere this New Year that I shall leave you with tonight, as it strikes a lovely, warm chord.

"When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms." 
- Mary Oliver